J-E's Gugel siblings sweep titles at Weedsport meet

Cross country teams remained busy in the lead-up to league and Section III championship meets during the latter stages of October. That included Marcellus and West Genesee, who both traveled to Saturday’s Marathon Invitational, where again Ryan Manahan proved the class of the field.

The Mustangs’ senior won the boys seeded race in 16 minutes, 6.8 seconds, nearly half a minute ahead of Vestal’s Dana Carris, who was second in 16:35.1. Justin Garn gave Marcellus a 25th-place finish in a clocking of 17:48.9.

West Genesee’s boys team was second behind Corning in both the Division I and overall standings., with Marcellus fifth on the Division I side.

Behind Manahan, the Wildcats’ Will Randall finished 11th, in 16:59.4, with Nate Conroy 12th in 17:03 flat. Mike Lannon was 15th (17:18.0), just ahead of Kal Strickland, who was 16th in 17:20.5. Jack Erhard was 20th in 17:30.1.

As WG took fourth and Marcellus ninth in the girls varsity race, the Mustangs’ Rachel Garn nearly won the individual title, tailing Windsor’s Maddie Zeitz right to the end. Garn finished in 19:17.7, just 1.7 seconds behind Zeitz in the second spot.

For the Wildcats, Lindsay Weaver led the way, grabbing ninth place in 20:14.7. Sarah Ferranti was 24th, in 21:18.5, while Elise Dunshee was 29th in 21:24.9. Abby Kastick settled into 33rd place in 21:33.4, one spot behind the Mustangs’ Molly McGuane (21:28.2).

As this went on, Jordan-Elbridge’s sibling tandem of Abby and Jack Gugel won their respective divisions at the Weedsport Invitational, and the boys Eagles claimed team honors with 41 points, six points better than the host Warriors.

Jack Gugel won in 17:23.4, nearly 16 seconds ahead of Weedsport’s Seth Baker, and had lots of help. Nick Parkolap was ninth, in 18:53.9, while Austin Milton took 10th place in 18:57.7. Christian Marrero was 12th, in 19:20.5, beating out Jacob Patterson (19:21.6) and Nathan Hollis (19:30.7), with Bill Direnzo (20:03.0) also getting a top-20 finish.